Trevlig Morsdag

Email written: 5/28/18

Hallå!! 

It's been another awesome week here in Övik. Äldste Hansen and I are working so hard and having some of the coolest experiences together. We really have seen the Spirit guiding us in that we do and say each day. It doesn't matter if we're serving, teaching, or finding. The Spirit is always there to help us. 

One of the things that we felt impressed to do is do something special for our friends that are mothers. Yesterday was mother's day in Sweden, and I'm not quite sure why it's different that the US, but I guess it doesn't really matter. Moms deserve more than one day to be celebrated anyways since they do so much! (s/o Momma Steele) The idea we had was we could think about a few specific people, and then swing by and give them a nice rose for Mother's Day. It seemed like something so simple, yet we were able to have some really cool experiences as we went out and delivered these flowers. 

The first one I thought of goes as follows, and I typed the story up a little earlier and so that's why it might feel like it doesn't flow as well. But anyways, there is an older couple, Glenn and Carina, that we had tracted into a few weeks ago. Glenn is someone who just loves to talk about just about anything and everything, and so we were able to really hit it off with them. What helped even more was that Glenn is oddly obssessed with Texas as well and so we wanted us coming back multiple times so he could learn all about Texas haha. Well, we went by another time after that and it was Carina's birthday and the whole family was there, her parents, glenn's parents, and their closest family friends. They invited us in to celebrate with them and so we came in and had some cake together and then met everyone. We thought we would leave after only a few minutes, but then their parents really wanted us to stay and talk to everyone for a while. We're not exactly sure why they wanted us to stay, but we gladly accepted and got to know each other. Everyone had their own unique personalities, some serious, some quiet, some loud, some bubbly, and it was so much fun to become friends with all of them. We then gathered our things and then went on our way home and thought about the next time we would come back and visit them to share a little bit more about the gospel and we thought that mother's day would be the perfect occassion and we could come by and give a flower to Carina! So that's exactly what we did, and sure enough, the whole family was there again and they invited us in for cake, yet again and so we came in and Glenn's mom just started asking us a bunch of questions about the church, and really sincere questions too and all the questions that we were able to answer surprised her quite a bit since everything that we said lined up with how she had thought about things her whole life. Others around the table began to ask more questions and so here we were, Äldste Hansen and I, sitting at a table, teaching a whole family, 6 people, all about the restored gopsel and the things that matter most to us. We were then able to all say a prayer together at the end of the meeting, and we got everyone else's information to then visit them individually as well since they don't get together that frequently. Glenn was happy to talk to us and said that it was so interesting to learn about America and Texas, but then his mom was just like no what was really fun, was listening to them talk about their church. I've always been interested in learning about other churches. 

Later, as we were driving on our way to another house, we passed by a kyrkogård (cemetery) and saw a woman there just sitting in front of headstone, and I thought it would be nice to give her one of the flowers that we had, but I wasn't so sure and Elder Hansen was driving and so I didn't know if he saw her, but then after we drove up a bit, Elder Hansen asked if he thought we should turn around and visit that woman, and so without even thinking I said absolutely, turn around. And so that's exactly what we did, and so we got out of the car and slowly walked towards her and we weren't exactly what we should say, but then I just said, we're not exactly sure why, but we felt impressed to come back here and give you a flower. She had been crying quite a bit and so she had to wipe away a lot of her tears. We found out that her mother had passed away 2 years ago and so she had thought to come to the grave and remember her mother for mother's day. We then were able to show her the Prince of Peace video and testify about the Plan of Salvation for her. It was something that she really needed in that moment and she was very thankful for the flower. We then went on our way and I guess we'll never really know what happened for her afterwards, but we hope that the small little act was able to help her out tremendously. 

The last one of the day, was a visit to Tea's family, to give her Mom a rose, and it turned into a 45 minute conversation all about what we believe in, what they believe in, and then ended with an invitation to come back for dinner, and an offer to take us sightseeing some time with the whole family. They are truly some of the best people ever and are now some of the best friends that we have here. We really look forward to spending more time with them and helping each other come closer to Christ. 

A ton more happened this week, but I guess it can all be summed up with one sentence, I'm loving life. While it might be really stressful now as district leader, and with the new technology and still relatively new to the area, it has been an absolute blast and such a fun adventure. I'm learning so much and continuing to improve daily through the help of God and Christ. Have a great week everyone! Vi hörs.

Pictures: 

Hike we went on last P-Day, out in Skuleskogen

Also, since my brother is getting married soon, my parents made a cut out of me so enjoy hahha

view from kerstin and anders

--Äldste Steele

Hike we went on last P-Day, out in Skuleskogen 

Hike we went on last P-Day, out in Skuleskogen

Hike we went on last P-Day, out in Skuleskogen

Also, since my brother is getting married soon, my parents made a cut out of me so enjoy hahha

view from kerstin and anders

A Texas Cowboy Goes to a Farm

Email written: 5/21/18

Kära familj och vänner,

WOW, what a week it has been. Life just continues to get better and better here on the mission. Also, in other news, I hit my 10 month mark on Saturday. It's hard to figure out exactly where the time has gone, but I know that I'll use the time that I do have left dedicated to helping others as best I can. Äldste Hansen and I have had a ton of service opportunities this week and it's been quite a wild ride.

6) chopping wood with Carlos 

On Tuesday, we went out and stacked wood and polished windows all morning for a nice elderly couple that gives the missionaries free haircuts. I had never really stacked wood before, but thankfully Äldste Hansen knew what he was doing and made sure I didn't mess it all up. During our service, the couple, Kerstin and Anders, not only prepared a fika for us, but also a lunch. Apparently in Sweden, you take a break every few hours to sit around, drink juice, eat some crackers and cheese, and then you get back to work. Sounds like we're hardly working, instead of working hard if you ask me, but I'm not going to say no to free food! At the end of our visit, we asked if we could come back and actually teach them, as they have had so much contact with the missionaries over the years, and they agreed! 

The very next day on Wednesday, we traveled about an hour and half away to Junsele to work all day on a farm with 2 members in our branch, the Karlssons! Yes I come from Dallas, Texas, but no I have never worked on a farm or done any kind of that work really, so let's just say it was quite the experience. We got to chop up some trees, milk some cows, take apart farm equipment, fika (as usual haha), all in work boots and jumpsuits. Pictures to be attached :) It was so cool to spend time with the Karlssons and get to know them and have some spiritual experiences together as we read from the Book of Mormon together and sang a psalm as well. 

3) playing with the new borns

4) hay is for horses

5) the farm

So, some of you might have seen my Facebook post, but for those of you who didn't and for those that are on missions without Facebook, I made a post with me and Äldste Hansen cooking pancakes. Last week, I had sent a picture of us with pancakes and our friend Tea. Well, last week when we had gotten the pancakes from her, we asked if we could help out this week and cook up some of the pancakes for the city. The organization that takes care of the event every week is called Pannkaks Kyrkan (pancake church) and it's simply just an organization made up of different christian churches that make pancakes for the community once a week. Tea and the other people that were there told us that we were more than welcome to come and so that's exactly what we did! We showed up and cooked pancakes for a HUGE line right in the middle of the city. We made so many awesome friends there and we even saw some of our potential investigators in line and we had a lot of good conversations. Not to brag or anything, but my pancakes were definitely better than Äldste Hansens haha just kidding. But at the end of the event, after making a lot of new friends, and becoming even better friends with Tea, we said our goodbyes and let them know we would try and help out as much as we could going forward in the future. Later that night, Tea then invited us to attend a worship/song/concert thing at a church building in the city the next day. We looked at our schedule, and saw that we had time, and so we decided to visit it and see what it was all about. It reminded me a lot of Vacation Bible School, if that kind of paints a picture of what the songs/concert was like. It was definitely cool to see other people worshiping God in their own way. What was so cool though, was we saw one of our old investigators there and talked to her for a while, and then one of our new friends Emil was there and he just asked me questions the whole time all about the church, and in the end, he asked us for a Book of Mormon to read on his own! What a bro! We wished we could have stayed the whole night, and gotten to know everyone there and find teaching opportunities, but we looked down at our clock and saw we had only a few minutes to get home, so we quickly had to rush out, but just as we were leaving, Debbie (the old investigator) stopped us and asked if we could all pray together before Äldste Hansen and I got home. We gladly agreed, because well, praying is awesome and highly recommend all of you do it. But we prayed together and then for the final words Debbie just told us "You know, Steele and Hansen, there's been a lot of good missionaries here, but there's something special about you two, I hope you know that" It was such a touching moment and it just put the cherry on top of the night. 

picture from Facebook post

I'm so thankful for this opportunity to go out and meet new people and see how God and Jesus Christ can help them in their lives. We have a lot of investigators that have some big mountains to climb, but I know that all is possible through our Savior, if we just believe, follow, trust in Him. Never forget that no mountain is too hard to climb and that there is always help. Have a great week everyone! Jag älskar er!! 

1) out hiking last P-day

2) view from the top of the hike 

Pictures: 

1) out hiking last P-day

2) view from the top of the hike 

3) playing with the new borns

4) hay is for horses

5) the farm

6) chopping wood with Carlos 

-- Äldste Steele

Eagle-Shield-Bay

Email written: 5/14/18

Roof access picture of Äldste Steele and Äldste Hansen

Hejsan!!

I don't have a ton of time today, but I just wanted to let all of you know that I arrived safely in my new area and life is great. The area I'm serving in now is called Örnsköldsvik, which literally translates to Eagle Shield Bay. How cool is that??

Elder Hansen and I have already had some amazing experiences together and it hasn't even been a week yet. We work so well together, mostly because we both love these people and also we're both willing to work really hard. With the combination of those 2, miracles happen all the time. 

On Wednesday, we're going out to a farm to do some service for one of the members here. It'll be my first time doing real farm work...kind of crazy since I grew up in Texas, but I'm really looking forward to this service opportunity. We have so many other awesome things planned for the week including some finding work in between and I know it's going to be a great week. 

We've been having a lot of success tracting (knocking on doors) recently, and I thought to share a quick experience about Maria to end off the email. About a week or so ago, Elder Hansen and Wilson (missionaries that we here right before I came) had gone by and had met Maria's daughter and had talked for a bit, and were told that they could come back. So, Elder Hansen and I were the ones that were able to go back, so we went and knocked on her door, and Maria answered. She had never seen us before, and so it was a little awkward at first, as it sometimes is knocking on doors, but then her daughter came by in the background and she remembered us. We just began talking and we became instant friends. We then remembered that we had an extra plate of cookies in our car and so we told her we would love to give them some cookies. She was completely shocked and didn't really know what to say. She then wanted to know what the catch was, but we just told her no catch whatsoever, we are here out of the goodness of our hearts to serve people and help them come closer to Christ. We then grabbed the cookies and delivered them to her and she was so happy she almost began crying. We said that we would come back some other time and that we could keep in contact through Facebook. Well, today as we were buying our groceries, we happened to see our good friend Maria working. We went and started talking to her and asked her about her hurt finger as she had sliced it open peeling some carrots or something like that, and then she told us that yesterday was just an absolute stressful day and it made things worse with the finger and she didn't know how to stop the bleeding, but then she remembered something. She had cookies in the fridge that 2 young missionaries had given to her just a few days prior. The cookies, while they might've been something so small, gave her a lot of comfort when she needed it and was so thankful for it. We then said goodbye and instead of us saying it first, she said 'Vi ses', meaning we'll be seeing each other a lot more in the future! It's experiences like these that Elder Hansen and I have been having. Experiences that have been so powerful and so touching for the people that we meet. Because really in the end, it's not about numbers, it's about the people. About caring for individuals and reaching out for love. It's something I've always focused on and I'm glad my companion Elder Hansen focuses on it as well. 

Hope you all have a great week! Jag älskar er! 

Pictures:

We have roof access on our apartment building and so we took a couple of pictures up there and then the other picture is our good friend Tea we met in the middle of stan who made us some pancakes. :)

-- Äldste Steele

Roof access picture

Roof access picture

Roof access picture

Roof access picture

our good friend Tea we met in the middle of stan who made us some pancakes

It's Going Down in the DL's pt.2

Email written: 5/7/18

Tjena!! 

1) The Endler's!!! Love them so much

Well, just like that, another week another transfer has gone by. I totally thought that I would be in Stockholm staying another 3 months, but sometimes God has other plans in mind. I will be moving wayyyy up north to a town called Örnsköldsvik to be with Äldste Hansen and as you might've guessed, I'm going to be the district leader up there!! It's going to be a lot more responsibility than I had as district leader in the MTC, as I will have to prepare for the weekly district meetings, go on exchanges with all the elders in the district, and keep good contact with district members to help them in the work. It's going to be a great opportunity to serve other missionaries and I hope that I will be able to receive help from my Heavenly Father to make up the difference for my weakness and inadequacies. 

As I was walking home on Sunday, letting it all sink in that I would be leaving Stockholm, I felt as if I really took my time for granted here. I thought of all the possible things I could do in Stockholm, but I kept pushing them off because I thought I would have 6 months here. But as I thought about it more and more, I realized I was focusing on the things that didn't really matter that much. I was thinking of all the museums and cool castles that I could have visited and all the touristy type things. But when it really comes back to it, I helped others come unto Christ. I helped our few investigators and members the best I could and served them with love. I gave my best effort here in Stockholm and I know that the only thing that matters in the areas I serve is my commitment to helping others learn how they can follow Jesus Christ, and when I look at it from that perspective, I'm able to move to a new area with an assurance I did what I needed to do. 

It's going to be a crazy next 3 transfers with my new responsibilites as district leader, and then another huge responsibility coming up after that once some certain missionaries receive their visas and get to Sweden ;)

Life is great! I'm loving the mission, loving the people, and loving my Savior. I'm excited to see what good ol' Övik has to offer.

Until next week, ha det bra! 

Pictures:

1) The Endler's!!! Love them so much

2) Sunset in Stockholm

3) a pic from last week at Valborg!

-- Äldste Steele

2) Sunset in Stockholm

3) a pic from last week at Valborg!

Äldste Renlunds besök

Email written: 5/1/18

Wow, what a week it has been! Looking back on my mission, this past week probably was the most eventful week. For starters, I'm writing this email on my new Samsung! We had zone conference on thurs/fri and so we had quite a bit of training on the use of technology in missionary work. The zone conference was fantastic and between the spiritual and information overload, I was totally beat afterwards. It's really taken some time to get used to this new change in our mission but I am so excited to see all that I can do with the tools that we have. While I might be stressed about it all, I've been able to just take it slowly, one step at a time, and working alongside Ä. Baggett to re-learn how to use technology haha. The mission really is all about adjusting such as to new areas, new companions, new language, new inspired changes, etc. It's been such a blessing to have the Lord by my side through all these adjustments as He helps me improve and become even better. 

Then, to make the week even more eventful,Äldste Dale G. Renlund of the quorum of the twelve apostles, came to visit Sweden and spoke to all the members on Sundayevening and then to all the missionaries yesterday. Since Ä. Renlund grew up in Sweden and served his mission here, he spoke to the all the members in Swedish and it was such a special moment. Most people, included myself and Elder Renlund, were in tears as he expressed his love for Sweden and said "Bröder och Systrar, det känns som jag har kommit hem. Jag känner mig hemma här. Det var på svenska att jag först läste Mormons Bok, välsignade sakramentet, bär mitt vittnesbörd" Words can't even really describe how special of a moment it was to hear an apostle of Jesus Christ bear testimony in Swedish. It will definitely be a moment I will never forget.

The next day, we got to hear from him again. He gave such uplifting messages to all of us as missionaries, including 'On behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for your service.' It really gave me the boost I needed to finish out this transfer strong and continue to improve as a missionary.

Otherwise, life is just fantastic! We went to this huge celebration yesterday called Valborg, which is pretty much when Swedes burn the winter away and it's supposed to mark the official beginning of Spring. It is just such a blessing to have all these experiences here in Sweden alongside my brothers and sisters that I love here. I'm thankful for my choice to come on my mission and even more thankful for staying on my mission and gaining my testimony that I'm supposed to be here and that I was called of God by revelation to serve at this exact time in Sweden.

Hope you all have a fantastic week! Jag älskar er!

Pictures:

1) Valborg

2) Zone leaders and Hampus 

3) äldste baggett och jag 

4) out in gåshaga brygga after a member meal 

5) typical swedish neighborhood 

1) Valborg

2) Zone leaders and Hampus

3) äldste baggett och jag

4) out in gåshaga brygga after a member meal 

5) typical swedish neighborhood

Stake Conference: A Joyful Reunion

Email written: 4/23/18

Hej på er! I can't believe it's already Monday, again! The weeks really seem to be speeding up and from what I hear from all the older missionaries...it just keeps on getting faster. I really hope I can make the most of the rest of my time here. I pray every day that I can be a blessing to others and that I can enjoy each and every moment. 

6) Pizza with Pablo and Gubbängen elders 

Overall, it's been a pretty eventful week, especially with Stockholm stake conference this past weekend. Apparently they only broadcast the conference in October, and then everyone is invited to the Gubbängen chapel in April, so that meant that the Gävle branch received the invitation and anyone who could get a ride would be there at conference! I was able to see so many people that I care so much for. That branch really is my family (S/o Sjökviskt, Heikki, Norup, Jonsson, many more) :) I even got to see Gävle'a newest convert, Selma! It was such a joyful reunion and I'm glad that we all were able to feel the spirit and learn a lot from the inspired speakers at stake conference together. 

We experienced a lot of miracles this week that really made us appreciate God's hand in our lives. One of them happened early on in the week on Tuesday when we went to teach David. Ä. Baggett and I had hoped that the rest of the family would be there as well and so we prayed that we could teach the whole family. When we came to teach, it was just David and his daughter Miriam. We began teaching for a bit, but then David's son Zaya comes into the apartment. He comes and says tja and what not, and we invite him to sit down for the lesson but he said that he was too hungry and needed to eat so he left the room and went to the kitchen. Well, not even 2 minutes later, Zaya comes walking back into the room and sits on the couch and listens to the rest of the lesson very intently. At the conclusion of the lesson, Zaya asks to say a few words. He then began to tell us that when he had sit down to eat, he felt a really strong impression that he needed to go to the living room and listen to the missionaries. He wanted to eat, but the influence of the spirit was more powerful, so he followed the prompting and was so thankful that he came to listen to the listen. The message was able to strengthen the faith of the family and it was so cool to see how not only our prayer was answered, but also the family was able to experience the power of the Spirit in their lives. 

Another miracle happened later on in the week when I went on splits with Ä. Denton, a hilarious snubbe that's just one transfer younger than me on the mission. A few days prior in weekly planning, Ä. Baggett and I had discussed what Carmen needed this week, and we really felt impressed to teach the law of fasting. So, fast forward to the day of the lesson and we are frantically trying to get a member on the lesson, and the first 6 or 7 members that we had called were too busy. It would've been really easy to give up and just say oh whatever we don't really need a member on the lesson (even though we needed one to be obedient), but we kept trying and finally at the last minute, our good friend Jérémie agreed to come and helped out on another awesome lesson with Carmen. As we began teaching the law of fasting, she said "Of course, how could I have forgotten that?? I need to try that. Elder Steele, how do you always know what I need to hear?" Plain and simple, the Holy Ghost :)

I invite all of you to pray, listen, write, and act, just as President Russell M. Nelson has invited each and every one of us to do. I know that as we do so, we will be able to be more receptive to the spirit as I myself have experienced recently. 

Keep on working hard y'all! Until next week, ha det gott!

Pictures:

1) Finally found someone with the last name Ståhl!

2) The backyard of a member here in Stockholm

3) This is where we live

4) I got to see my little buddy Benjamin!! 

5) solnedgång

6) Pizza with Pablo and Gubbängen elders 

7) nordiska museet

Äldste Steele

1) Finally found someone with the last name Ståhl!

2) The backyard of a member here in Stockholm

3) This is where we live

4) I got to see my little buddy Benjamin!! 

5) solnedgång

7) nordiska museet

En Apostel Kommer till Sverige Snart

Email written: 4/16/18

3) POE baby

Kära vänner och familj! 

This week has just flown by! It feels like the week ended just as it was starting. The zone conferences have started for this transfer and that means missionaries have started receiving new phones and getting access to Facebook and a bunch of other resources not originally available to this mission. Our zone conference is a little bit later than everyone else's on the 27th of April, so we have a little bit of time, but pretty soon I'll be back on Facebook! Vad konstigt alltså! I know that these changes are really going to help the work go forward here in Sweden and prepare the way for the Second Harvest. 

Speaking of the Second Harvest, look it up if you don't know what it is. Second, Äldste Dale G. Renlund, a member of the quorum of the twelve apostles, will be visiting Stockholm at the end of the month!!! Äldste Renlund is a Swede and so we're hoping when he comes to visit, he holds a talk in Swedish. It's going to be such a cool experience and we're all really excited for it. Apparently a few weeks ago, Äldste Renlund sent an email to one of President's counselors, Leif Mattson, saying something along the lines of "Prepare the members, the Second Harvest will happen" I just get chills typing that out. I've said it before and I'll say it again...It's such a blessing to be serving a mission in Sweden. #bestmissionintheworld 

We really had a great week here. Whether it was meeting the head of professional baseball in Sweden, or helping out some fellow Americans get from Stockholm to Amsterdam as part of a Red Bull competition, or spending the day in the mission office booking travel and filling orders, or the weather being nice enough to go out in short sleeves and no jacket, or even starting to teach a new investigator! 

Our new investigator, David, is actually someone who used to meet with the missionaries quite frequently but lost contact for a couple of years. His kids all ended up getting baptized, but David never was, but one of his kids started coming back to church, and so David wanted to receive visits from the missionaries again. When we came to teach him, we sat down and he pulls out all of his study materials, which was a bunch of scriptures and study manuals in both English and Arabic. He looked at us and said "before we begin, I want to let you know that I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet" We had such a great lesson about prophets and David actually ended up teaching us a lot of it since he's studied so much. There's a few roadblocks that are stopping him from making that step, but we're hopeful for the future and glad to start working with him and his family! 

That's about all I have for this week. Keep being awesome! Vi hörs om en vecka! Ciao

Pictures:

1) Vilken utsikt! 

2) David and I, as we were walking out of his apartment, I saw a Real Madrid hat and I just might a comment about how cool it was. He picked it up looked at me and said it's yours now

3) POE baby

4) Met some tourists from Russia that have met with missionaries before, so we gave them a Book of Mormon in Swedish as a souvenir 

-- Äldste Steele

1) Vilken utsikt! 

4) Met some tourists from Russia that have met with missionaries before, so we gave them a Book of Mormon in Swedish as a souvenir 

Ain't Nobody Got Time For That

Email written: 4/9/18

Tjabba Tjena Hallå! 

It's been a great week here in Stockholm and the work is continuing to move forward. It's such a blessing to be a missionary in this city! Before I get on with what happened this past week in Stockholm, I thought to give you all an update on Gävle, my training grounds. 

About 4 months ago, Äldste Berlin and I had been invited to help out at a primary activity at the church since they were going to be short on adults to help out. We were a little hesitant at first since we had some other things to accomplish, but we decided to go anyways and help out the primary. The activity originally was supposed to start in the afternoon, but due to some other conflicts, it started a lot earlier, around 11 or so. Well, Äldste Berlin and I show up to help, and it turns out they were good on adults to supervise, so we were just standing around not exactly sure what we should do. We felt like we weren't helping at all and that we were just taking up space. After standing around awkwardly for a good 15 minutes, we decided to find a room and start calling through the contacts in our phone. Well just as we were about to do that, one of the members in the branch, Karin, came up to us and said 'yo, det finns någon här som vill prata med er' och sen vi ba 'vem då??" It turned out to be a woman named Selma that wanted to come to the church and pray with the missionaries. If the activity had been a lot later in the day, we never would have met her. Selma is someone I talked quite a bit about in my final few emails that I sent while serving in Gävle. We taught her quite often and she was SO prepared, but just as we thought things were good to go, a new concern or a worry would pop up. We continued teaching and helping to resolve concerns and then it was up to Äldste Lewis and Tolman as I packed my bags and moved to Stockholm. Well, I'm here to say that those 2 Äldster in Gävle are straight up killing it and SELMA WAS BAPTIZED on Saturday! I was able to talk to Selma on the phone right after she was baptized and she was so unbelievably happy to have made that decision in her life. I hope that she continues to learn in the church and help bless the lives of all those around her. 

As far as da boyz here in Stockholm, we are seeing miracle after miracle here, one of them being that even though an apartment building caught on fire in Karlaplan (pretty near our house) no one died and the firefighters were able to save a lot of people off their balconies. 

We were able to teach Carmen twice this week, once on splits with my zone leader Äldste Craun, and the other time when Äldste Baggett and I felt impressed to swing by Carmen and read a scripture with her. I was thinking all day on what we could share with her and nothing was really coming to me, but about 15 minutes before we were going to leave, I felt impressed to share some scriptures from Enos Bok. We went over there and talked briefly, read a few scriptures, and then applied the scriptures to her life. She was completely shocked at the message we had shared because she said it was exactly what she needed that day. She had prayed and prayed to receive an answer to one of her questions and then we were able to visit her and the answer came as we sat there reading the scriptures. It's experiences like this that you just can't forget, and they happen on the daily. Life is so great as a missionary, and while it isn't easy at all and has it's fair share of "forgettable moments", I'm so thankful for the time I've spent here so far. 

We've really been focusing a lot on the invitation that President Nelson gave at the end of conference last weekend:

"I exhort you to study the messages of this conference frequently--even repeatedly--during the next six months."

We have been studying and applying the messages from conference this past week in our lessons, contacts, member meals, etc. and it has been such a success! I'd just want to invite all of you to follow the counsel of the prophet as I have done, and I know your life will be better if you do! 

Tack för allt ni gör! Ha det så gott! Ciao

Pictures:

1) Our homie Danut that hand makes chessboards

2) Hit up the Naturhistoriska Museet last P-Day

3) fire in karlaplan

4) more fire

5) Me and Äldste Craun #bro

6) Östermalm 

-- Äldste Steele

1) Our homie Danut that hand makes chessboards

2) Hit up the Naturhistoriska Museet last P-Day

3) fire in karlaplan

4) more fire

5) Me and Äldste Craun #bro

6) Östermalm 

Zlatan Gatan

Email written: 4/2/18

Tjabba!!! It's been another great week here in Stockholm and an even better Easter weekend, having the chance to listen to our prophet, Russell M. Nelson, and all the other apostles and leaders of the church. We were able to spend a lot of time with other missionaries and members in the ward this weekend and it was really awesome to get strengthened together as disciples of Christ. 

I thought to share a really cool experience that happened this past week! So this past week, several new missionaries got here straight from the MTC and the assistants sent us a text asking us if we could go greenie contacting with all the new missionaries. We said of course, and came to hit up stan with some greenies on their first day here in Sweden. It reminded me so much of my first day in Sweden 7 months ago, not knowing what was going on, tired out of my mind, and getting 'nej tack' yelled at me to everyone I tried to talk to. I decided that I wanted this new missionary to have a legendary experience for his first day, and not get wrecked like I did. So I thought a lot about it that morning and all the way leading up to contacting, on how I could help him have a good experience. And then the idea came to me!! 

1) the jerseys 

Just the day before, Elder Baggett and I had met these two guys that make super good fake soccer jerseys and actually had bought some Sweden Zlatan jerseys from him and become bros and secured a pretty nice discount for any future purchases. I decided that I could take the greenie first to the soccer jersey stand and talk to one of my friends before we jump completely into the water talking to strangers. So, I get paired up with Äldste Whitaker and we go immediately to Hötorget to talk to our soccer jersey bros. When we first get there they thought I was back to buy some more jerseys and so they pulled several out of a box, and I was like kompisar....I don't want a jersey today, I came to teach the gospel with my friend here. I already knew their background since I had asked them the day before, and they weren't really interested, but I thought to ask them who in the area would be interested in learning more. The head honcho thought for a few moments and was just like, the lady that own the stand next to me is Christian and would probably love to speak with you. 

So we walk on over and just strike up a conversation with her and pretty early on in the conversation we found out that she had just gotten in contact with missionaries down in Hägersten. She talked about how she wanted to go to church super bad the past sunday, but her son's soccer game went too late so she couldn't come, but she was so interested in the church and was so excited to learn more from the missionaries. She told us about her two sons who hadn't been baptized yet and that they probably would get baptized in the church and how also she wasn't super set in the beliefs she grew up in and she definitely saw herself getting baptized in the near future. Every question she posed was just perfect for us to give the answer to and we gave her a Book of Mormon and assured her that she was in good hands with the missionaries in Hägersten. I was so happy that I was able to follow the Holy Ghost and meet such an amazing person and one prepared for the gospel, and I'm glad that Äldste Whitaker was able to have a good first day (even though he forgot his jacket in his suitcase and about froze haha)

Keep on keeping on! Have a great week everyone. :)

Picture:

1) the jerseys 

-- Äldste Steele